Room ready for rendering

Feedback from Martin: background looks great, but the hands of the man need some illumination on them, coming from the direction of the lampshade - a small spotlight with yellow in it placed near to the hands, but aimed as if the light comes from roughly the direction of the lamp (probably need to be a bit closer to the camera than it would be if there was a straight line between the lamp and hands), and that would pick out the fingers and the piano well at present we can't see them.

Pixar's unusual creative process

Ever since I started learning all about computer graphics and animation, Pixar films have been a great source of inspiration to me.
I thought it would be interesting to explore it's unusual creative process and discover the reasons behind the smashing success of its productions. Every Pixar blockbuster requires years of brainstorming and fine-tuning. A staff of writers, directors, animators, and technicians move from project to project. As a result, the studio has built a team of movie makers who know and trust one another in ways unimaginable on most sets. The animators and director often meet to discuss scenes and animations in their movies. I have learned from Pixar that being open to comments and criticism is a must.

    

    

Here are some of my favorite quotations from people at Pixar:

It’s important that nobody gets mad at you for screwing up, we know screwups are an essential part of making something good. That’s why our goal is to screw up as fast as possible.” - Lee Unkrich, director of Toy Story 3.

“What you have to do in animation... is direct the audience’s eyes to where you want them to go, to not just soak in the environment, but feel it.” - Graham Walters, producer of Finding Nemo

"There’s never a wrong idea. You just keep throwing stuff out...inevitably there are elements of different things that inspire a character or environment.” - John Lasseter

Creative and Production Process II

Animation Process:


To animate a character, I had to analyze and practice the animation principles, one by one, from simple to more complex. Bill Evans states: “Animation in its purest form follows the rhythms of music and speaks to the same universal mind. Think of the funniest walk cycle you have ever seen and try to put it into words. You can’t. It doesn't matter what language you speak. Great poses and pure movement speaks to our humanity- the part of us that operates below the verbal level.”

Before the actual animation phase starts, I had to decide which personality each character will convey, so I could get my animation to be as real as possible. the goal behind acting for animation is a feeling of spontaneity.

Using footage references is very important for character animation. This is why I recorded myself and a friend acting and doing the desired motions then used the footage as a reference to help me in my animation, especially with the “timing and spacing” principle. It’s very essential for the animator to be somehow good in acting and to be able to get a sense of how the body moves.

Creative and Production Process I:

Since I chose to make a short 3D film as a major project, my individual creative process consisted of three phases, pre-production, production, and post-production: Storyboarding, concept and character design, art direction, modelling, shading, texturing, lighting, rigging,  skinning, animation, and of course, continuous research. Time management was also crucial in the creative and production process. Gantt chart was created to manage tasks effectively and to allow smoother planning for tasks at hand.

A short animation will only be successful if its story captivates the audiences; the rendered frames are not behind the success. A big part of the creative process was spent on research and pre-storyboarding. Looking at John Lasseter’s earliest short-films has also been a great source of inspiration to me. He was one of the first animators who emphasized on “memory” in 3D. 

Learning process II

The second part of my learning process is that I understood that the technique and skill used are not the only things that I need. Since the start of the year, this fact changed the way I work and design my projects.


As a student in animation, focusing on the technical aspect is not the most important thing. Learning new software, tricks and techniques should not always prime over research or documentation. I have learned that inspiration, stories, characters, words, are as important as the methodology adopted. The most successful animators were driven by inspiration, by the belief that adults can also be entertained by animation. I believe that animation can be a medium that has impact on the whole society and would certainly help transmit the artist’s message to it.


Earlier in my blog, I gave an example of how John Lasseter was inspired by the work of the Japanese animator Miyazaki and his influence not only on children, but also the adults in the society. I have learned that a good animator also needs to have an eye for acting, for facial expression, for different tones to give life and emotions to characters they create.

Two key points I stressed on:

- My characters should be alive
- They should convey an emotion, an experience.


The biggest challenge in animation is to give life to an object, or create a character and make it convey emotion and move like a human being, animal or elements of nature. Such work necessitates an understanding and study of life around us.


While working on my final project, I exposed myself to the principles of animation and their application in movies, specially the earliest short movies created by Pixar (Luxo Jr., The adventures of Andre and Wally B., and many others). I had developed a critical eye and would analyze other artists’ animation to evaluate it and get ideas for my own animation. This naturally led me to find inspiration in others and apply those principles in my own work.

Jonah Lehrer’s book: “Imagine"

I enjoyed reading Jonah Lehrer’s book “Imagine”, in which he highlights a part of the creative process some people forget.

Lehrer declares that the feeling of frustration is an essential part of the creative process. “When we tell stories about creativity, we tend to leave out this phase. We neglect to mention those days when we wanted to quit, when we believed that our problem was impossible. Instead, we skip straight to the breakthrough. We tell the happy ending first”, says Lehrer.

The danger of this scenario is that the act of feeling frustrated is an essential part of the creative process. Before we can find the answer — before we can even know the question — we must be immersed in disappointment, convinced that a solution is beyond our reach. We need to have wrestled with the problem and lost. Because it’s only after we stop searching that an answer may arrive.

Lehrer, Jonah (2012), Imagine, How creativity works, Canongate Books Ltd; Export & Airside ed edition, Page 201.

Playblast 1

Playplast+music of the first scene, 5 shots

Inspiration 10: Meet Meline

Meline is a little girl that spends most of her time drawing in her grandparent’s barn, and she will meet one day a creature that will arouse her curiosity and the action begins. I was interested in the first minute and a half of the movie where the focus is on the little girl drawing, and the drawings she would hang on the board and in the credits at the end where some drawings are put on the floor. The lighting on the drawings and the environment of the room are based on rays of sunlight that enter from holes in the barn house.

Inspiration 9: The last farm

Even though "The Last Farm" didn't influence this project from a technical point, it depicts a deeply emotional story with culturally recognizable themes and issues (loss, death, senior home care issue...) to which viewers from different cultural background can relate to it.

This Icelandic short film shows how strong emotions and personal experience affects our perception and therefore our behavior. An old man is presented working in his land and waiting for his children to come and take him to an elder home, acknowledging to another character in the film that his wife is feeling better and that she is currently sleeping. Only later towards the end do we realize that his wife passed away and he was keeping her death a secret and was in fact digging her grave reaching to the end where he lowers her tomb in the whole, joins her and buries himself alive while his children were about to reach his house.

The idea of loss and emotional pain is presented in different aspects in this film:

- The loss of his wife.

- The loss of his children who are coming to take him to elder home while it is clear in the movie that the old man is still in a very good physical shape. (he built the tomb, dug the grave and lowered it single handedly )

- The concept of being taken away to an elder home can be perceive by the old man as the loss of his remaining members of his family and his land.

This experience of loss has lead to the old man's suicide since he has lost everything and has no reason to live. Even though in this project the case isn't as severe, it is clear that the actions of the father occurred due to his emotions and the loss of his daughter.

Learning Process I

With the start of this MA academic year, I enjoyed learning about different ideas and styles in animation. The weekly assignments in the previous semesters have helped me narrow down my interest area and consider a specific area of focus that I can develop to a more advanced level.

When I started thinking about my final project, I wanted to produce something I’ve never done before, that would allow me to combine all my learning and expose me to new challenges. I also wanted to demonstrate a high level of consideration of cinematography and editing in a 3D-animated film that will raise it to a more polished standard.

One main important aspect of my learning process is that I engaged myself with aesthetic and communicative properties that allowed me to understand how the design decision making process is influenced by the needs of audiences. The pre-production phase exposed me to new techniques in character design and storyboarding. It helped me realize that every decision in the pre-production is worthy of attention, since it can save time and ease the work process in the production phase.

During the production phase, I was able to widen my understanding of the different possibilities available for problem-solving techniques in 3D. I went through different techniques in character animation, and got fully immersed in applying the traditional principles of animation to my digital production.

I learned to look at other artists’ work and explore it closely before starting to create something. . I learned that inspiration is extremely necessary in every art work because it opens up the mind and the heart and gives both new ways to express themselves.

Inspiration 8: Nuit Blanche

"Nuit Blanche", a short film by Arev Manoukian, is about two complete strangers sharing a special moment. It's a phenomenon that occurs to anyone, anywhere and it lasts for a split second. Just other short movies that were mentioned before, this short is almost 5 minutes long and features no dialogue, no background story on any of the characters (they are also strangers to the viewers who managed to relate to them as "lovers") and the presence of emotional ambient music. The Influence of Nuit Blanche in this project can be seen in the lack of dialogue, the history of the two characters is a mystery to the viewers, yet it is clear that it's about a father and a daughter (a notion that all viewers have experienced and can relate to in their own personal way). The dominance of emotional music is present also in this project which helped the transition from the "Real" and "Memory", the music starts when the father closes his eyes and starts reliving his memories of his daughter. This can also be seen in Nuit Blanche, the 1st transition between the "Real" and the "Imaginary" occurs with music tempo changes, slow motion shots that last until the second transition which brings the characters back to reality.

Inspiration 7: The Drawer of Memory

This short film was created by Po-Chou Chi, a Visual Communication Design student. Mixing the style of surrealism with 3D animation, Chi stresses on the accumulation of feelings, human affection and the recollection of memories. The drawer of memory expresses that loss is very difficult and memories form an unforgettable past. 

It evident that this short animated film is heavily from Salvador Dali's work, especially from his "anthropomorphic cabinet (aka Drawers of memory)" painting where the character from the short follows the same concept of the character in the painting.

As an artist from the surrealism art movement, Dali was influenced by Sigmund Freud "who discovered that the human body, is today full of secret drawers that only psychoanalysis is capable of opening".

Inspiration 6: La Luna

(Trailer below)

The little boy Bambino was one of my inspirations in texturing and shaping and customizing my character (using The Eleven Rig). His big eyes, small nose and mouth with almost nonexistent lips are the facial traits that I chose for my little girl. The director/writer was inspired by his own life and the relationship between his father and grandfather for the making of his short movie. He took elements of his life like his childhood by the sea in Italy and his experience with his father and grandfather and presented them in La Luna. 

More knowledge in lighting

  

Sybex’s book “Advanced Maya lighting and texturing” by Lee Lanier was a very useful tool during my production learning process. It focuses on advanced lighting techniques for both amateurs and professionals. The author’s experience in the field is evident throughout the book. This is the only book I found that goes into detail about how to use the hypershade effectively (how to create useful shader networks, how to use the math utilities, etc.)

I have gained a lot of knowledge about lighting theories and techniques which is extremely valuable for my current and future projects.

Inspiration 5: Fire in the evening by Paul Klee

Looking at Paul Klee’s work taught me to give more importance to detail and to light and dark values that provide appealing contrasts to my artwork, animations and paintings. I have been encouraged by his devotion to his art to venture in methods and techniques, to experiment and find new ways to express myself. I also noticed that Paul Klee progressively separated colour from physical description and started using it independently, which made his paintings become more abstract. Klee’s work has been described as “alluding to poetry, music and dreams”, three things that are very dear to my heart and that always find a way into my work. In the pre-production and production phase, my work has been inspired by Klee: specially in the use of colors and childlike mood in the film.

Part of my work was inspired by Klee, whether it's how I managed color and visual style, or how I included a childish feel to my artefact. My short film starts with childish drawings and the credits are all written by my 6 year old cousin, I wanted the entire film to relate to childhood.

Inspiration 4 - Geri's game

This award winning short animated film didn't influence this project from a technical point of view. The plot of the short presents an old man trying to pass his time playing against himself in a game of chess.  Geri's game served this project in its phenomenological approach. Despite its playful and cheerful mood, the actions of the main character can be perceived as sad, depicting a lonely old man who experienced the loss of a close friend who he used to play against. This explains the different ways people deal with loss based on personal experience and emotions, phenomena can be perceived differently from person to person. In this case, Geri is an old man who probably accepted the fate of his friend (who's most likely to be of his age) and decided to play against himself to amuse himself due to the absence  another partner .  It is clear that the emotions and reactions of this character are very different from the Old woman from "Drawer of memories".

Inspiration 3: Toy Story

I was inspired by the lighting concepts in “Toy Story”, especially by how the first scene was warmly lit, to represent a child’s memory of his first playtimes. My interest in coloring and my reflection on John Lasseter’s work have given me new dimensions on how to use colors to reflect the mood I want in the scene. I learned that colouring is as important as any other aspect in a scene. I was also inspired by Sharon Calahan, lighting technical director in the film, his work helped me realise how much lights can add visual interest to the film. Lights can create drama as they would in any live-action film. Andy's room, for example, has high-key, warm lights to create a happy, friendly, safe place. In my environment concept of the piano scene, I used very warm colours, mainly orange to create my atmosphere. I understood the importance of colours for the representation of emotions and memories.

The narrative of Toy Story revolves around toys, which are common across cultures and countries and that allowed the movie to be more universal. Toy Story’s main characters are toys and the narrative revolves around them. Nostalgia, childhood and toys are key elements of the Toy Story franchise.

The majority of the “Toy Story” s target audience have or have had playful childhood experiences with toys and Pixar's character designs reflect the universality of the toys, which are not products of any specific era, because audience of all ages can relate to the toys in the film.

Toy Story and representation of Nostalgia:

The 3 Toy Story films demonstrate a good understanding of complex viewer nostalgia. The films engage with the semiotics of toys, as a trigger of nostalgia and the memories of childhood. Having childhood as a theme, the film provokes much emotion across diverse audience.In my short film, I decided to have a piano toy as a trigger for the story in my short movie. The piano represents at the same time Childhood and nostalgia. The action starts in the little girl’s room where we find toys and drawings. I did not want to have a room crowded with toys, so I did my best to pick the ones I thought would be the most common across cultures and genders.